Adding your Real ID to your Battle.net account will allow you and your friends (who have also entered their IDs and have agreed to be friends with you) to access a number of unique features - real names for friends, cross-game chat, rich presence (additional information about what your friends are doing/playing), broadcasts (short messages to all your friends), and see-all-characters.

Comment by Huludicidal

Comment by Femlock

Comment by stevebat

edit: this will be great because you can talk with friends without switching realms

Comment by Sahasrahla

on 2010/05/05 14:25:18

Is Real ID an outside medium that I'm not aware of (like Facebook) that can be integrated in? or is "Real ID" just their term for Battle.net's snazzy community options?

Edit:

Battle.net's Real ID system is a new, optional layer of identity

Read the FAQ Andy...

Comment by Gnub

on 2010/05/05 14:27:13

This is getting quite exciting.

What's next? Steam? MSN? ... Skype?

Comment by hylan333

on 2010/05/05 15:19:40

so im going to assume that there will be an app where i can check who is online and chat with them. or have an instant messenger sort of deal.

Comment by Wolfwarrior

on 2010/05/05 15:55:38

Blizzard version of Steam? Anyone?

Comment by spontyman

on 2010/05/05 15:59:20

I'm interested as to when this will be "released".

Comment by seebs

on 2010/05/05 16:38:49

I would TOTALLY love this.

Except for the "you are known by the first and last name of your battle.net account" thing.

With that, I imagine a lot of people will choose not to do it, and I certainly won't. Not that there's any secret, at all, about who I am; anyone who asks who I am will get a pointer to my nick, and anyone who cares can figure out my government-name from that. I just object to the underlying premise, especially since there's presumably a fair number of people out there who might have issues...

Look at it this way. Look at what happened with Google Buzz. Your most frequent contacts automatically subscribe to your updates. Sounds great!

... Until someone points out that her physically abusive ex-husband is one of her most frequent contacts, and has been AUTOMATICALLY subscribed to information about where to find her. Whoops.

I love the idea of being able to friend a person rather than an account. I also like the idea of being able to opt some characters out of it (such as my bank alt, for instance), and of being able to pick the name people are given when I friend them. Without that, I'm not using it.

But I do like the implication, since this goes by battle.net account instead of WoW account, that WoW's game engine is learning about battle.net, because that makes it seem more likely that I'll be able to send heirlooms within my whole battle.net account.

Comment by Noam

on 2010/05/05 16:39:38

Cross-game chat, that's going to be interesting.

"Dude, get your ass outta Uldum and come take down mobs in Diablo!"

Hopefully Blizzard, well more so their users, watch their accounts more proficiently now, nothing would be more annoying than being in a SC2 or D3 game and getting a spam message about "You buy wow gold at omgwtfhaxbbq.com!" Because someone got their account hacked.

Same thing goes for the Broadcast option, I don't want to be messing around in an instance and get BOMBED with "<User> needs your help beating a Siegebreaker in Diablo 3!"

All in all though, it should be a pretty cool implementation.

Comment by scottmj

on 2010/05/05 16:49:30

Is there going to be an option to 'hide' yourself? And taking this one step further, hiding yourself from some or all people on your list?

Comment by Haeleos

on 2010/05/05 17:08:11

Will it have the ability to set up cross-realm randoms?

Otherwise this seems like a silly feature.

'course, I don't make many friends...

Comment by frillydoom

on 2010/05/05 17:20:10

I'd really like a "appear offline" feature. Sometimes I just want to level an alt in peace without being begged to come to a raid, or help with a quest. Maybe I'm just anti-social, but sometimes I hide from my "friends."

Comment by ArthNegri

on 2010/05/05 17:33:43

Very, very good.n my opinion, is is very efficient. Because you will have a cross-game chat. And obviously, a cross-wow-realm chat too! So will be perfect. You will have the chance to talk with horde friends, your friends that also play another games and connect them in the new Blizzard Real ID.

Comment by seebs

on 2010/05/05 19:24:45

I just can't get past the "must expose your billing name to people" part. Or for that matter, it looks like that would also extend to friends-of-friends.

Consider what happens if your kid plays WoW. You obviously want to be friended to your kid... And then if you friend anyone else, it exposes your kid's name, and people are gonna guess that the similarity of last names is a hint as to the relation.

Comment by spacerogue

on 2010/05/06 17:06:07

No thanks, MSN for life.

Comment by seebs

on 2010/05/06 17:30:19

The more I think about this, the crazier it sounds to me.

Your battle.net email address is your login name -- that's half your account's security right there, compromised if anyone on the list of people who gets to see it turns evil or gets hacked. Furthermore, think how much better phishing would be if the phishers could send email to the private, unique, Blizzard-only email address Blizzard advised you to use, addressed to your actual full name, just like Blizzard would do...

I mean, sure, we're all super intelligent unlike 95% of WoW players, and would never fall for that... But a ton of people would, and some of them will be on your friends list.

Comment by Supremacy

on 2010/05/06 19:10:58

Good idea.

Horrible, horrible execution.

This is one of the few times I agree with the majority of what's on Blizzard's official forums about this.

One of the largest problems (and I'm being diplomatic in calling it "largest problem" as opposed "giant, gaping, cluster of lapses in judgment of epic - nay, biblical proportions") is the whole Friend of A Friend feature.

Hey, Supremacy used RealID with John Smith. Now they know each other's real name. And e-mail addresses.

What's this? John Smith is RealID friends now with HateMongerViolentSexualDeviant. Oh, good, now he knows Supremacy's real name. And e-mail address.

Oh, hey, John Smith? He is RealID friends with Joe Blow. That's nice, except the Joe Blow is a GM for a 100 man guild, and they're all required to use RealID for admission to the guild, so now they all know Supremacy's real name.

Because, you know, that's what I want. Strangers addressing me by my real, full, legal name. I'm sure that there is zero chance - zero - that one of them could get hacked, or be a hacker, or not have my privacy concerns. Just blurting my name to everyone.

And ladies, I'm sure this is a dream come true for you, right? Using your RealID with a roommate or friend or relative, and having them RealID their guild, so now 80 people know you're "a girl IRL". You know that alt you have that you use when you don't want to be bothered by a bunch of people sending you whispers along the lines of robes and wizard hats? Won't really matter when they see next to your name. And know what server you're on. And even what game you're playing.

And, yeah. Yeah, that's what we want with sons and daughters and nieces and nephews playing the game. A 12-year-old with their real name out there for anyone to see. "No, I'm only 12. School? I go to Main Street Elementary."

It's just...why in holy hell would Blizzard want you to use your real name as an identifier? And share it with other people? Over the damned internet? I mean, this article explains their plan, but, honestly? It doesn't really explain what the hell they were thinking.

There are other issues - glaring issues - that exist, but I think that's kind of a big one. Especially since I haven't seen anything saying that this would be optional. The use of your actual first and last name for RealID, not the use of the service itself. I will admit I find it a very puzzling thing that they would introduce all these new, useful, long-wanted features, but then add such an odd condition.

It's like winning the lotto and being told you need to have your legs broken before you can collect the jackpot.